I'm intrigued to see that you guys from the US are going out of your way to watch the UK version - I personally go out of my way to watch the US version instead as I find it so much more rewarding!!

Maybe it's the excitement factor for me of having to 'acquire' it rather than just switch the TV on, making it seem like more of an event but I've always thought that BB USA was much more interesting given the fact that in the UK version housemates are forbidden from talking about nominations or making strategies.

For me, that's a huge missed opportunity because it basically makes the show into a marathon session of people just sitting around doing nothing and getting on each other's nerves!

I must admit I do still watch BB UK but it's a really different show and I think the USA version is much better. Then again, I am a huge fan of Survivor (which, again, I have to acquire!) so perhaps that whole strategy and alliance thing is more my cup of tea.

Anyway, I can't possibly venture into any UK based sites talking about Celeb BB UK as they are scary to say the least (if anyone wants to see what I mean check out www.digitalspy.co.uk!) but I'll be interested to see what you folks make of it!

Oh, and by the way, if you're thinking you might be missing something because you'd never heard of most of the celebrities, well, neither had most of the UK so don't feel too bad. Quite a ropy celeb line-up this year methinks!

James, welcome to the forum! We look forward to discussing the BBUK and CBB-UK with you.I have the first episode downloaded, but have not had a chance to watch it tonight. I'll be saving that for tonight. I can't wait!I'm not really all that worried about these celebs I have not heard of (most of them I've never heard of, some I have). When I watchedthe recent Big Brother All Stars I was going in having only wtached the previous version of Big Brother with Howie, Kayser, Janelle and James.

As for downloading the episodes. Sometimes it's a pain like when you can't find any torrent of what you're looking for. Considering I have had to download several shows, I'm at least glad I have several hard drives with almost a total of 500 gigs.

As for Survivor, at least most of those can be purchased in region one format. If you have a DVD player with region one coding, you can buy them for home. I wonder if BBUK is available on DVD.

At the end of the day, it is too bad we don't have a simpler, easier way to watch our favorite shows from whichever side of the pond we want to view. Yes, there is BBC-America over here, but I don't watch to many of the shows there, (though I did watch "Is There Life on Mars", which I thought was pretty good.

I've seen the launch (premire) episode, and I have about 10minutes left of the download before the second episode is finished, and I must say (without spoiling the episode to Jeff) that it was a great start to the season. Gave me goosebumps. Donny will be nominated first, and evicted soon after.

I never thought about that, how acquiring the episode is just as much fun as watching it. You are 100% right, and maybe that's why I love BBuk more.

I think they do have BBuk on DVD, but the coding is only for those in Europe. I'll have to look into that, but I have heard that previous seasons were on DVD.

Previous BBUK series are available as highlights DVDs only - I think they stopped around series 4 as they weren't great sellers. You'd need several hundred discs for a complete series, can you imagine? With an hour's show every day for 60 days plus BBLB and BBBM...

Yep. Diary Room is the same. Listen to what Davina says about it; how she describes it in the premire.

I didn't watch any of the Little Brothers, Big Mouths, or Big Brains in BB7. This season, since it's only for a short amount of time, I'll begin watching all three. Any idea which ones are good and which ones aren't, James?

The page is blank when I go to the sign-up. I read the FAQ and it says only so many new members are allowed each day to stop spamming, so one needs to keep trying.Odd, never seen anything like this, but I will try once more.

So James, TheCinera and I ended up watching a few of the Princess Nikki episodes. Did you, and if so, what did you think of it?

Thanks for the website, but I'll stick to my usualy websites as I don't have to sign up. I usually get my BBuk shows through a program called mIRC. It's alot faster than torrents, but I use torrents for back-up.

BTW, James, please don't spoil for us the Family twist that will be happening soon. I know that it's almost time for it to start in the UK, but I won't be able to see the episode until tomorrow.

You know, it occurred to me as I was watching last night's family twist show that you probably would end up being a day behind me, don't worry, no spoilers though!

I'm guessing you've probably seen it now though? It was no surprise to me at all because the papers here have been full of this particular story since before the show even began!

That's one thing that's very interesting about BB UK- it's basically a national event now every series - every newspaper and TV show is full of BB news throughout the summer here in the UK whereas for some reason I don't get the impression that it's such big deal in the US.

I've always wondered whether this is because our guys are on our screens every night for 12 weeks and also 24 hours a day on E4 - that's one thing I did always wonder about the US version, why only 3 shows a week when there is so much to fit in (HOH, Veto, Elimination!)

I've never watched the live feeds from BBUSA but I get the impression they'd fill in quite a lot of gaps which 3 hours a week just can't fill!

Hope you enjoy the live family show guys - I'll be sitting down in an hour or so for tonight's installment!

I just got all caught up with the live shows yesterday, and it was fantastic! Still, I knew from speculation that Jade was going in, so that was no shocker for me. But a surprize eviction will happen on Wednesday! Whoopie! Evict Jackiey! Something about her I just don't like.

Yeah, Big Brother here in the US has a bad reputation. Reality TV is looked down upon as un-ethical, and locking people in a house is even worse (to the media). I keep reading articles in newspapers and online entertianment sites wondering why the show is still on. Thankfully, Big Brother 8 USA has been greenlighted (as far as I know).

BB1 in the USA used to follow the same format as they do in Britian. A daily show every night, nominations by each contestant in the Diary Room, Viewers vote to evict housemates, etc. The viewers here got so confused how it all worked that they voted out all the interesting people and only the boring stayed. That's why they changed the entire format in BB2. They do have live feeds, and they always have loads of strategy talk on them, but CBS is too stiff when it comes to air their show (they want to air other shows), so they cram it all into thrice-weekly one hour episodes. I would love to see daily shows, but, maybe, it might turn off viewres from the channel completely if they see that BB is always on.

Can't wait to see the next episode when it becomes available for us. I heard what happened to Donny. Uh-oh!

Donny! LOL, what a laugh. Was there a moment in the house he was not liquored up? He doesn't even remember entering the house. I wonder what inspired him to go in in the first place.

I agree TheCinere, Jackie needs to go and I'm sure she will be the one to go. No one is going to keep her over one of the celebrities or Jade or Jack. I think it'll be a landslide. Of course, I'm not so sure how many votes Ken will get. he seems to be a really good sport about things so that may give him a few votes.

As for the hosue next door, they seem to be taking things in great stride. Wow, I'd forgotten how old Dirk actually is now, still I'm pulling for him to win (I love it when a plan comes together). Oh, and I LOVED his house enterence. Even Davina thought the A-Team enterence was fun!

Wow, are most American missing a great show!!!!! I'm axiously awaiting each episode.

Good old Donny - I knew he wouldn't last long, LOL!!! Although escaping via the roof is a bit of a cliche now (anyone remember Sandy from a previous BB series, I think he was the first...)

As for the whole family thing, well to be honest it's nearly put me off watching now. Jade was entertaining in a car crash way during her season and since then I've tolerated her spin-off series about opening her beauty salon, "creating" her own perfume and hiring an assistant, "Apprentice"-style...

But for her to come into the house and claim that she's in the paper every day, "at least twice a week on the front page", that she sells more magazines than Victoria Beckham ( ) and that she's the 25th most influential person in the world (WTF?) is at best completely delusional and at worst absolutely obnoxious.

And as for her godawful mother and cheating rat boyfriend, well they can get lost too as far as I'm concerned - we already saw more than enough of Jackiey following Jade's eviction from the house first time around and she's definitely outstaying her welcome in the public eye over here. These really are the worst type of people, completely brain dead morons who somehow end up in the public eye and think they've become important.

I guess it's probably hard for you guys to appreciate just what trash Jade really is but as soon as she opens her mouth it's pretty obvious to me!

James, I may not know Jade and I didn't get a chance to see her season. This last season was my first BBUK, (Ironically the BBUS Version just before the all stars was also my first American season, so overall I'm fairly new to the whole phenomonon. However, you wondered why American don't have BB on more often. I have to admit, before I got a DVR, my excuse for not waching Big Brother was it was on far to oftne and I missed a lot of episodes, so I never tuned in. That may be a small glimpse into why Americans don't have it on every day. To be fair though, now that I've started to watch it, I wish it was on every day like the UK version (of course that may be my DVR talking) LOL.

Currently I'm downloading last nights episode and probably won't get it till tongiht. I've been having computer technical difficulties that I'm still trying to work out. For some reaoson when I try to download a program, every ten minutes my comptuer will restart. It only does that when I'm downloading something so I need to investigate the problem. In the meanwhile, it takes a lot longer for me to download a prgram because if I'm not watching my computer I am not able to restart the download. Fortunately it saves the progress each time. Perhaps I should look into downloading the MiRC way. (Tips TheCinerea would be fine.)

Oh, my whole point about Jade, almost forgot about that. I could tell as soon as she opened her mouth she was lying. I listen to enough BBC radio and websites and papers to know she's not famous. More like a Z-class celebrity. Didn't Jermaine Jackson make some comment along those lines?

I've known who Jade is for a while. I was in Britian with my family when her season was on TV, and I checked out the show the first night I was there, but I couldn't keep track of what was going on, so I gave up. I remember seeing at gas stations that the morning papers were flooded with Front Page headlines about Big Brother, and I was frustrated that the show wasn't this popular back at the USA.

Jeff, do you want me to send you tips on how to download on mIRC? If so, then I am going to have to send it to you by e-mail. I know what your e-mail is already, but I was just wondering if maybe your problem is because of spyware. Have you done any cleansing of your hardrive or have you figured out the problem already?

So I just finished watching the episode that Donny escaped, and from the 15 (or so) minutes that I saw of Jade, I already can't understand a word she says. Maybe it's the accent. But the longer they stay in the house, the longer they'll drive the viewers and the celebrities crazy. I'm already afraid to move on to the next episode. According to the bets: (possible spolier. hightlight here) Jack (boyfriend) is going to be evicted. Jade is least likely to be evicted. (end highlight). I don't mind if that person goes. They can walk out any day, and I wouldn't care.

I think I'm actually on the same time frame as you guys now as I've started recording it and watching it the next night as it's on too late for me (9 o'clock till 10?, no chance!!)

The episode I watched last night (which aired Sunday night in the UK) has to be one of the most uncomfortable pieces of TV I've ever seen.

It's now painfully obvious why they decided to put Jade and her family in and it's certainly having the desired effect as the atmosphere in that house is horrible, but I have a feeling that it's actually going to put people off watching because the situations are just becoming too tense to even be entertaining!

Jackiey and Jade are some of the most obnoxious people you could ever meet (although I'm starting to have slightly more respect for Jade purely because she is so embarassed by her mum's behaviour) - they have that true arrogance that only people who are suddenly thrust from absolute nothingness into the public eye seem to have. Unfortunately our country is becoming more and more overrun with these types of people, who never work or contribute anything to society but expect everything to be handed to them (and it frequently is, thanks to our welfare state system), and have huge chips on their shoulders about how the world is so down on them.

Actually from watching Jackiey laying into Shilpa last night for no apparent reason it seems to me she might have some kind of mental illness as this isn't normal behaviour. I've seen her before and thought she was quite strange but this is even worse - I think the producers may have misjudged things by putting these guys into this stressful situation!

Regarding Jade and her 'fame' - The odd thing is, in actual fact Jade is very famous in the UK, but not in a good way - she's famous in a kind of Paris Hilton "what is this dumb girl actually famous for" type-way and she gets a lot of bad press, but she's right, she does sell papers, like it or not! To put herself in the same league as Victoria Beckham though is just plain delusional!

At least she can still bring some of the unintentional "oh my god how dumb are you" humour to the show, though. Some of the classic quotes from last night's show included "No one knows how high the sky is, do they?" and (to Jermaine Jackson) "So, are you really black?"

Actually the whole segment where she attempted to get the low-down on Michael and his problems from Jermaine was for me the most uncomfortable piece of the whole series. It really was a case of 'you're not actually going to ask that, are you, oh god, yes you did!' Someone give this girl a talk show!

I guess the whole thing about Jade is the humour in her stupidity but to be honest (and I felt the same about last year's celeb BB winner Chantelle), I really really can't stand people who think it's funny to be stupid, and even worse make themselves famous for being stupid.

Someone asked about Jade's accent - I'm not surprised you can't understand her as I can't either a lot of the time! It's a combination of talking very fast and talking in the way that a lot of young people talk in the UK today. It's basically a really lazy form of the London 'cockney' accent crossed with a Jamaican accent (yes, really - a lot of young people in cities today seem to think they're rappers or something and talk as if they were black...!)

Anything else of note in last night's episode? Although Jackiey is obnoxious I didn't quite get why Shilpa was so upset by her really getting into the task and playing the master as she was supposed to - especially when she'd revealed earlier in the show that she has 4 servants at home, 2 chauffeurs, a make-up artsist and a bodyguard! A bit close to home maybe?